For our July “fish sister” profile, we are highlighting Julie Vecchio, a woman of fisheries with an unconventional career path. Julie started out working in outdoor education after her bachelors degree, taking kids snorkeling, kayaking, sailing, etc. to learn about marine science. Her first real exposure to fisheries was during her masters degree where she worked on catch and release mortality of Red Drum which eventually led to a job with a state agency monitoring estuarine and marine fish. After a few years of pulling nets and reading underwater video, Julie put her education hat back on and taught high school for a few years. The lure of fisheries was too great, however, and she returned to the fisheries field to pursue her PhD working on tracking fish through stable isotopes in fish eye lenses. Nowadays, she spends her days analyzing catch data collected from recreational and commercial fisheries to inform stock assessments and her free time as a host of the Fisheries Podcast. If you’d like to hear Julie speak about her career path and PhD research, check out our previous Women of Fisheries Research Highlight and her Fisheries Podcast interview.

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Current Position(s):

Assistant Research Scientist-Fisheries Dependent Monitoring Program-Fish and Wildlife Research Institute-Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

General description of your work/research:

In my current role, I provide marine fisheries management statistics to assist with decision-making at both the state and federal level. People don’t always know that in order to make rules about how many and what sizes of fish can be kept, managers first amass a large amount of data about the historical catches within each fishery. People in our group go to boat ramps, piers, etc. and ask anglers about their catch. I take those data and provide summaries and analyses to managers trying to make new or updated rules about how many of a particular species are allowed to be caught and kept.

How long have you been in fisheries? 

I got into fisheries when I started my masters degree in 2003. Until then, I knew nothing about fisheries and thought marine ecology might be my direction. However, I started my Master of Science in a program that gives the students a year to decide on a mentor/project (Marine Biology at the College of Charleston). The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources had a lot of masters projects and I became fascinated with marine fisheries monitoring and fisheries management. My masters project was on catch and release in Red Drum. I had never fished seriously before but found myself having to catch 200 Red Drum to assess survival with different hook types. It was an incredibly eye-opening experience. I have been “hooked” on fisheries research ever since. 

I think my favorite part about the field is that it’s incredibly applied. The things I learn biologically today could be applied in stock assessments within the next few years. I can be doing basic science, but I know it could be applied pretty immediately. I am not often part of management decision-making, but it is incredibly interesting to me as well. As scientists, we have to provide what will be used to manage not only the population of fishes, but the population of fishers as well. 

Who has been your favorite mentor or role model? 

During my masters degree, I worked for a pair of guys that had been working together for decades. They were the perfect pair. Bill Roumillat and Charlie Wenner. Charlie was the data guy. He was the Principal Investigator. He spent most of his time in his office working on grants and reading fish scales (one of the few people left who did that). He was one of the old guys who’d gone to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) in the 60s. He’d gotten into fisheries because he loved to fish. He loved it passionately. He would tell stories about fishing for Red Drum on the North Carolina Outer Banks. He was also a great pragmatist. He would say things like “mortality is 100% in the cooler” (catch and release is always better than not) and “If you can’t grow up, you can’t make babies” (recruitment overfishing). He taught me that sometimes the simplest analyses are the best. Keep the story simple and you will always get a good publication. Stick too many variables in there and try to do some fancy statistics, and it muddies up everything. 

Bill was the field guy. He had boundless energy. In his 50s, he was always running circles around the rest of us young-uns. He knew his boats inside and out. He knew his fish inside and out. He was incredible at what he did and he LOVED the field. Their sampling regime had Bill in the field at least 5 days a month, and you’d think he’d died on the days he couldn’t be out there. But he also loved exploring and discovering. We often worked with a parasitologist who would discover all kinds of worms and new species in our samples. Bill was constantly wowed by what she found! 
Working for those two guys gave me the best foundation of loving science, discovery, data, and field work, which I do to this day.

What was the best advice you’ve gotten? 

I think the best piece of advice I’ve gotten as far as overall science goes is “Don’t pay for grad school.” You will always be able to find a program that will pay you as a teaching or graduate assistant. You will never get paid enough to need to worry about loans. The pay is not great in this field. Don’t put yourself in a hole starting out.

Do you have any advice for new women entering the field?

This work is mentally and physically demanding. If you are doing field work, you will work very hard physically. If you’re doing analysis, you will work very hard mentally. You will not get paid well. If all of this is ok with you, this can be an incredibly rewarding field to work and study in.

One thing that I actually think younger women do better these days is that they have not gotten the social programming that they can either be “girly” or “smart” or “outdoorsy.” If they want to, they can be all of those things. When I was growing up, if you were to be taken seriously as a smart girl/woman, you were expected to NOT look good. You couldn’t wear make-up or nice clothes, because you would immediately be considered “not smart.” But things have changed and I’m glad that women can both dress nicely and get dirty (at different times).

What is your favorite thing about working in fisheries?

I think I have two favorite things about working in fisheries. 

1. I have gotten to go to some COOL places. I have snorkeled and dove all over the Dry Tortugas. I’ve worked on just about every coast of the U.S. I have spent a ton of time at sea in the Gulf of Mexico. The travel is awesome. Getting to be at sea for work is awesome.
2. The fact that any discoveries I make could be applied in decision-making at a very rapid pace. This proximity to pragmatic uses really makes me want to keep exploring and keep innovating.

Do you have any messages for the Women of Fisheries followers? 

Do what you want to do when you want to do it. I was told in college that if I didn’t go to graduate school right away, I never would. This was dead wrong.

I have had a pretty circuitous trajectory since graduating from college and I wouldn’t change a thing! After graduating from college, I worked for 4 years in outdoor education. I took kids snorkeling, kayaking, sailing, etc to learn about marine science. I then went back to school for a masters degree. I spent 3 years getting that degree and learned about fisheries. I then worked for a state agency (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, FWC) for 6 years in the Fisheries Independent Monitoring Program. After that, I wanted a break from fisheries so I spent 3 years teaching high school. Spending 3 years in high school again, I decided to go back to school again for a PhD. I found that completing a PhD was LOT easier when I had several years of experience with data collection, setting up a database, datasheets, etc. I also found that the science came easier with experience. I knew how to read papers in a way I hadn’t before. A lot of the struggles that students go through in graduate school just were not there for me because I was coming in with a great deal of experience.

About a year into my PhD, I got pregnant and had my son. My son is now 4, and I finished a PhD and have a pretty good, flexible job in science.  Don’t let anyone tell you what the “right” timeline is for your life, your degree, or your career trajectory.